China A-Shares: The “Beta” Story

Over the past thirty years China has experienced dramatic economic expansion, eclipsing most other emerging market economies and virtually all of the developed countries. As Exhibit 1 illustrates, China’s GDP climbed at an average rate of just over 9% per year since 2000, often breaking into double-digit growth over that period. Currently, the second largest economy in the world, China is expected to pass the U.S. as the world’s largest economic power within ten years. But how does that extraordinary growth translate into an opportunity for equity investors?